The Iron Man 3 Trailer is Here

In the first movie, we watch Tony Stark come to realize the value of human life, and using his superior intellect and vast wealth to be a force for change, if not entirely “good.” In Iron Man 2, we watch Tony deal with the hubris that follows extreme arrogance; he’s not the only one with the smarts to harness vast power, and his father may not have been the vaulted genius he was made out to be. But in learning to confront his past and work with his friends, he perseveres.

Yes, I realize I’m over-generalizing, but I think the scope is nice.

In the third film, Tony is fresh from helping defeat the Chitauri and Loki in New York city, and is having to come to terms with the fact that there are things in this world – and really, in this universe – that are much bigger than he could ever imagine. There’s a press conference, and some really cool new auto-build tech (likely the Mark 11 Modular Armor), but he’s tormented. He plays it cool in action, and becomes the man who will lay on the wire for his partners, but this has changed him substantially. Suddenly, everything is much more fragile. Including Pepper.

Enter Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin, hell bent on destroying Tony Stark (his lover is kidnapped and his home destroyed) and devaluing Iron Man (destroying the suits and the presentation of The Iron Patriot). Parallels will undoubtedly be drawn between The Dark Knight Rises and the themes of defeat and dehumanization, but it’s important to note that this is a traditional aspect of a hero’s journey: one must descend into death (or a facsimile thereof) in order to change and return triumphant. The Tony Stark we haven’t seen yet, the Tony Stark that has reinvigorated the character in recent story runs at Marvel, is the Tony Stark who serves as leader (and director of S.H.I.E.L.D!); a cocky genius and leader. Tony will always be an ass, but he perseveres. Until now, he’s remained largely unchanged. But the final shot in this trailer is that of him dragging his busted suit through the dark… likely to repair again.